Issue editor: Agata Stasik
In this issue of State of Affairs we explore possible answers to the challenges faced by the social sciences in regard to the future. We look at the relation of scholarly prediction with the great modern projects of rebuilding societies, and we analyse the renaissance of utopian thought. We rediscover the achievements of Polish academic futurology from the 1970s. We ask about the role of the imagination and the tradition of poetic prophecy, as well as the role of narratives about future society in creating new technologies. We check how the social sciences have contributed to the concept of the Anthropocene and what the consequences are for our reflections on the future. We comment on popular visions presented by pop scientists and analyse Karl Marx’s approach to the future. The volume is supplemented by a series of reviews of works by international and Polish scholars who deal with the topic of the future, as well as Michał Warchala’s polemics with Krzysztof Świrek’s Teorie ideologii na przecięciu marksizmu i psychonalizy, and Świrek’s response.